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OnLive

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Template:Future product

OnLive
File:OnLive Logo.jpg
File:OnLive.jpg
ManufacturerOnLive
TypeStreaming Games On Demand
MediaN/A (on-demand content)
CPUOnLive (server based)
Controller input4 wireless, 2 USB
Online servicesOnLive Games On Demand

OnLive is an on-demand video game platform, announced at the Game Developers Conference in 2009.[1] The service is a gaming equivalent of cloud computing: the game is synchronized, rendered, and stored on a remote server and delivered online. The service was announced to be compatible with any Windows PC running Windows XP or Windows Vista, or any Intel-based Mac running OS X.[2] A low-end computer, as long as it can play video, may be used to play any kind of game since the game is computed on the OnLive server. For that reason, the service is being seen as a strong competitor for the console market.[3][4] Thus, Engadget states that "Broadband connections of 1.5 Mbps dials the image quality down to Wii levels while 4-5 Mbps pipes are required for HD resolution." The average broadband connection speed in the US at the end of 2008 was 3.9 Mbps, while 25% of US broadband connections were rated faster than 5 Mbps.[5]

It was announced that Electronic Arts, Take-Two, Ubisoft, Epic Games, Atari, Codemasters, THQ, Warner Bros., 2D Boy and Eidos Interactive have signed up to have their PC games available on the service.[6] Sixteen game titles are currently available from the OnLive service.[7] The service is currently in closed beta with plans to have an open beta during the summer of 2009. The service is planned for release in the winter of 2009.[8][9]

Console

OnLive will sell a console, called the "MicroConsole",[10] that can be connected to a television and directly to the OnLive service, so that it will be possible to use the service without owning a computer.[1]

Steve Perlman has also suggested that the underlying electronics and compression chip could be integrated into set-top boxes and other consumer electronics.[11]

The MicroConsole supports up to four wireless controllers and four Bluetooth headsets. It also has a USB port for keyboards and mice.[12]

Architecture

The OnLive service will be hosted in five co-located North American data centres. Currently there are facilities in Santa Clara, CA and Virginia, and one being fitted out in Texas.[13] It is claimed users must be located within 1,000 miles of one of these to receive a high quality service.[14]

The hardware used is a custom set up consisting of OnLive's proprietary video compression chip as well as standard PC CPU and GPU chips. For older, or lower performance, games such as LEGO Batman, multiple instances can be played on each server using virtualisation technology. However, high-end games such as Crysis Warhead will require one GPU per game. Two video streams are created for each game. One (the live stream) is optimised for gameplay and real-world internet conditions, while the other (the media stream) is a full HD stream that is stored server-side and used for spectators or for gamers to record Brag Clips of their games.[15]

Executive Team

  • Steve Perlman is OnLive's CEO who is well known for QuickTime, WebTV, and other ventures.
  • Mike McGarvey is OnLive's COO who was Eidos' former CEO
  • Tom Paquin is OnLive's executive vice president of engineering. He is best known as being a key developer behind Netscape and as the founder of Mozilla.org.
  • John Spinale is OnLive's vice president of Games and Media. Spinale previously was SVP of Product Development at Eidos with McGarvey, and Director and Executive Producer at Activision. He also founded and ran Bitmo.[16]
  • Paul V. Weinstein is OnLive's vice president of business development. Previously he worked as EVP of Business Development for open source database company MySQL.
  • Charlie Jablonski is OnLive's vice president of operations. His career includes 16 years at NBC as Head of Engineering and Technology

Corporate information

OnLive was incubated within Rearden LLC, a company founded by Steve Perlman. Since it was spun out as an independent company, it has also taken over control of MOVA, another Rearden start-up founded by Steve Perlman, as a wholly-owned subsidiary. MOVA is a facial creation and motion capture company whose technology has been used in films such as The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

OnLive's investors include Warner Bros., Autodesk and Maverick Capital.[17]

Skepticism

Soon after its announcement, many game journalists expressed skepticism concerning how the OnLive service would work. These mainly related to the quality of the service in real-world conditions, both in terms of the hardware required in OnLive server centers to render and compress the video, as well as the impact of commercial internet broadband connections on its delivery. During GDC 2009, which was held in San Francisco, the OnLive service was only 50 miles from its Santa Clara data center. The closed beta has also only seen "hundreds of users on the system".[18] Near the E3 Conference, OnLive tested their service in a real-world environment with a regular cable modem. Reports say that OnLive preformed well. [19]

Matt Peckham from PC World stated that it might be technically difficult to transfer the amount of data that a high definition game would require; later on he mentioned that OnLive would need a "deterministic broadband". That is "a guaranteed, non-shared, uninterruptible speed", but "broadband isn't there yet, nor are ISPs willing to offer performance guarantees". He also mentioned concerns about the "mod community" being unable to create and offer mods since all the game data will be stored on the OnLive servers; as well as the fact that any games bought on OnLive are not actually owned by the user. If OnLive were to go under, all the user's games would also disappear with it. Currently, no widespread trial has been made to test the service so it is unclear whether it would work once live.[20][21]

Eurogamer's Richard Leadbetter also expressed concern about OnLive's system.[22] Though the article was published while OnLive was being demonstrated to attendees of GDC 2009, the article does not reference any personal experience with the system, nor does it include any comments from GDC attendees who tried the service. The piece does not fact-check what Leadbetter calls "OnLive's claims." For example, Leadbetter writes that by stating the OnLive video encoder has 1 ms of latency, OnLive's Perlman is, "saying that the OnLive encoder runs at 1000fps [frames per second]. It's one of the most astonishing claims I've ever heard." The OnLive website FAQ[23] states OnLive operates at 720p60, which is a 60 frames-per-second video format, contradicting Leadbetter's assertion. The 60fps rate is also mentioned in Perlman's VentureBeat response.[24]

Interviewed by the BBC on April 1, 2009, Steve Perlman responded to the skepticism by saying that OnLive has developed a custom compression technology that will make the service possible. "Rather than fighting against the internet... and dropped, delayed or out of order packets we designed an algorithm that deals with these characteristics," he explained. He also dismissed Eurogamer's article as "a very ignorant article [with] conflated issues of frame rate and latency".[25] In the VentureBeat article, Perlman gave further details about Leadbetter's claims by stating:

He's confusing compression latency (1ms) with frame time. The frame time is NOT 1ms (which would imply 1000 fps). It’s 16.7ms (which implies 60fps). Just as linear video compression time is much HIGHER latency than one frame time (e.g. 500ms latency does NOT imply a 2fps frame rate), interactive video compression is much LOWER latency that one frame time."[24]

Cevat Yerli, the CEO of Crytek, had researched a method for streaming games but concluded that Crytek's approach would not be viable until 2013 "at earliest". Yerli made it clear Crytek was not directly involved with the OnLive service, and Yerli had no personal experience using the service. Rather, Electronic Arts, the publisher of Crytek's Crysis Warhead, had partnered with OnLive and had tested and endorsed the OnLive technology. Yerli stated,

"I want to see it myself. I don't want to say it's either 'top or flop'. I hope it works for them because it could improve gamers' lives. The technology of video-based rendering is not actually a very new concept but they do some things that others didn't do before so it will be interesting to see."[26]

Reaction of console manufacturers

If OnLive were to become a reality, console manufacturers such as Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft would be the most affected. In particular, Steve Perlman has said the console, joystick and subscription would be cheaper than the cheapest of consoles.[27]

None of the console manufacturers made any official announcements about OnLive, however Sony registered a trademark for cloud gaming called "PS Cloud" the day after OnLive was announced.[27][28] However, the trademark covers a broad range of possibilities, including online videogames, Internet radio, eletronic magazines, cloud computing, etc. and thus no direct conclusions can be drawn from it.[29]

Competitors

The first company to enter this space is the California-based company OTOY. It made an announcement on January 8, 2009 at CES. Soon after OnLive was announced, another competitor, Gaikai, was announced.[30][31] Gaikai had not planned to announce its streaming browser-based Game-on-Demand service until June, but founder David Perry said it had to bring this forward when OnLive made its announcement.[32]

Spawn Labs also announced its Slingbox for games service, although it will initially target its solution as a productivity tool for game developers, rather than a consumer-focused product.

References

  1. ^ a b Roper, Chris. "IGN: GDC 09: OnLive Introduces The Future of Gaming". Pc.ign.com. Retrieved 2009-03-25.
  2. ^ Terdiman, Daniel (2009-03-19). "OnLive could threaten Xbox, PS3, and Wii | Gaming and Culture - CNET News". News.cnet.com. Retrieved 2009-03-25.
  3. ^ Ricker, Thomas (2009-03-20). "OnLive killed the game console star?". Engadget.com. Retrieved 2009-03-25.
  4. ^ "Le « cloud gaming », l'avenir du jeu vidéo ? - Actualités" (in Template:Fr icon). ZDNet.fr. Retrieved 2009-03-25.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unrecognized language (link)
  5. ^ Akamai: Fourth Quarterly "State of the Internet" Report
  6. ^ "Current Partners". OnLive. Retrieved 2009-03-25.
  7. ^ "List of OnLive Games". OnLive. Retrieved 2009-03-29.
  8. ^ Roper, Chris. "IGN: GDC 09: OnLive Introduces The Future of Gaming". Uk.pc.ign.com. Retrieved 2009-03-25.
  9. ^ "FAQ". OnLive. Retrieved 2009-03-25.
  10. ^ Kelly, Kevin. "GDC09: Rearden Studios introduces OnLive game service and 'microconsole'". Joystiq.com. Retrieved 2009-03-25.
  11. ^ Joystiq: GDC09 interview: OnLive founder Steve Perlman, continued
  12. ^ "MicroConsole". OnLive. Retrieved 2009-03-29.
  13. ^ Joystiq: GDC09 interview: OnLive founder Steve Perlman wants you to be skeptical
  14. ^ Engadget: OnLive gaming demonstrated live, network latency discussed
  15. ^ Joystiq: GDC09 interview: OnLive founder Steve Perlman, continued
  16. ^ "John Spinale". OnLive. Retrieved 2009-04-06.
  17. ^ Rearden: About
  18. ^ Joystiq: GDC09 interview: OnLive founder Steve Perlman [page 2]
  19. ^ Joystiq: Impressions: online and live with OnLive [update
  20. ^ "GDC 09: 6 Reasons OnLive Could Be a Bust". PC World. 2006-07-31. Retrieved 2009-03-25.
  21. ^ By PETER SVENSSON – Mar 25, 2009 (2009-03-25). "The Associated Press: Streaming games could be bane or boon for ISPs". Google.com. Retrieved 2009-04-06.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  22. ^ "GDC: Why OnLive Can't Possibly Work Article". Eurogamer. Retrieved 2009-03-26.
  23. ^ http://onlive.com/service/faq.html
  24. ^ a b Takahashi, Dean (2009-03-30). "News | Game industry executives react to OnLive video games on demand announcement". VentureBeat. Retrieved 2009-04-26.
  25. ^ Waters, Darren (2009-04-01). "NewsTechnology | OnLive games service 'will work'". BBC News. Retrieved 2009-04-06.
  26. ^ "Crytek: Streaming games service viable in 2013". Gamesindustry.biz. 2009-04-02. Retrieved 2009-04-22.
  27. ^ a b Dumons, Olivier. "OnLive ou la fin annoncée des consoles de salon" (in French). LeMonde.fr. Retrieved 2009-04-07. De quoi inquiéter Sony, qui a senti là un danger non négligeable, et a immédiatement déposé (le lendemain de l'annonce) un brevet "PS Cloud" similaire à celui d'OnLive. (Enough to make Sony worried, who felt a significant danger, and immediately registered (the day after the announce) a trademark "PS Cloud" similar to OnLive's one.
  28. ^ U.S. Trademark 77,697,735
  29. ^ O'Gara, Maureen (2009-04-08). "Sony Trademarks the Term 'PS Cloud'". SYS-CON MEDIA. Retrieved 2009-04-28.
  30. ^ "Gaikai". Gaikai. Retrieved 2009-03-26.
  31. ^ "GDC Exclusive: David Perry's Entry into Server-Based Gaming". GameDaily. 2009-02-26. Retrieved 2009-03-26.
  32. ^ "OnLive: Inside and Out". Gamespot. 2009-03-24. Retrieved 2009-03-27.

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